Watch It Wiggle
by ShannonSto
Summary: Response to the week's Improv challenge


**A/N**: My response to this week's Improv challenge at Unbound.  The challenge is to use the first and last lines as given and weave a story around them in 1000 words or fewer.  

**Disclaimer**: Still don't own anything.

*^*^*^*^*^*

"Why is there jell-o here?" Greg asked. He continued to stare disapprovingly at the offending container in the refrigerator.

"You don't like jell-o?" Warrick asked from behind his newspaper.

"No. Something about all that wiggling and jiggling…childhood trauma.  It's a whole long jell-o story," Greg grimaced with a dismissive wave. "And who puts raisins in it, anyway?"

"Raisins?" Warrick rose from his seat to examine it for himself.  "Oh, that's just wrong.  Grissom must have run out of room in the lab fridge again.  I hate when he puts his experiments in with our food." Groaning, he returned to his seat and picked up his newspaper.  As an afterthought, he warned, "Oh, and I'm guessing those aren't raisins.  I wouldn't eat it if I were you."

Greg peered down the hall, and cast a mischievous grin in Warrick's direction.  "Here comes Nick.  I got a ten spot that says I can get him to eat it."

"Eww, man, that could be dangerous.  Besides, I don't bet any more."

"I'll stop him before he actually puts it into his mouth," Greg defended.

"Intelligent CSIs-in-training don't mess with Grissom's experiments, Greg."

"What's uuuuup?" Nick announced his entrance into the break room with his Texas grin.  Sara followed right behind him and took a seat at the table.  As Nick began to rummage in the refrigerator, Greg leaned in and whispered something in Sara's ear.  She nodded and whispered in response. Greg mouthed the words "you're on."

"Hey, I'll split the jell-o with you," Greg offered enthusiastically to Nick.

"Whose is it?"  
  


"It's mine, but I brought too much."

"Cool. Green's the best one. Dish it up."

Sara leaned back in the chair, folded her arms and watched with mild amusement.  Greg scooped a small amount of jell-o onto a plate for Nick, then another small scoop for himself.  She couldn't help but notice the spiky-haired DNA tech wince as the dessert jiggled. 

Nick's hunger turned to suspicion as he eyed the plate. "What are those? Raisins? Oh, geez, this is one of Grissom's experiments, isn't it?"

"Damn it!" Greg howled.  He slipped a ten dollar bill into Sara's outstretched palm.  She snapped it dramatically and made a show of checking its authenticity before placing it into her pocket with a satisfied grin.  Warrick chuckled, and as Nick recognized what had happened, his laughter drowned out everyone's.

"So this is where everyone went," Grissom stated dryly.  He had heard them all laughing from down the hall.  If he was to carry out his plan to re-engage with the world, he wanted to be present when his colleagues were having fun.  His eyes settled on Sara's huge grin.  With a pang of regret, he realized he couldn't remember the last time she'd flashed it at him.  He moved to get his food from the refrigerator when he noticed the jell-o sitting on the counter, spooned onto two plates.  "Has someone been eating my jell-o?"

"Why do you leave that stuff in the fridge with the food?" Nick asked, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

"What do you mean?" Grissom asked innocently.

"Your experiments."

"My experiments," Grissom responded, "are all in the fridge in the lab."

"And the jell-o?" Nick challenged.

"Is my dessert."

"Wait," Warrick jumped in. "The jell-o's not an experiment? So what are the little black things?"

"Raisins," Grissom answered, completely confused as to what all the fuss was about.

Once again, Sara held out her hand and Greg placed a ten dollar bill in it. And once again, Warrick and Nick erupted in laughter.

"Grissom, uh," Greg ventured. "I gotta ask.  Why would you put raisins in your jell-o?"

"Why do you do whatever-it-is you do to your hair?"

Greg caught on to Grissom's line of thought. "I like it that way."

Grissom shrugged. "Different strokes for different folks."  Sitting at the table with his dessert, he scrounged through the sections of the paper that Warrick had already read.

"Hey, Sara," Nick teased, "I heard you had a date with an engineer."

Sara was not amused. "Actually, Nick, he was a conductor.  And it wasn't a date, it was a case."

Grissom breathed a sigh of relief.  His heart had skipped a beat at Nick's insinuation that Sara was seeing someone.  He knew she had every right to date, and she deserved to be happy, he just hoped she could wait a little bit longer.  He had spent the past months getting his proverbial ducks in a row so that a relationship with Sara would have a better chance of surviving.  He was nearly ready to take the leap.  He only hoped he wasn't too late.

"A train conductor?" Greg asked curiously. "What was the case?"

"It turned out to be nothing.  Someone mistook a diaper bag for a bomb and pulled the emergency brake," Sara explained.

Nick wrinkled his nose. "Did you have to search the diaper bag?"

"Well, the bomb squad did.  It was a bomb all right, but the kind that only kills olfactory cells." Sara's grin grew again. "I want to know what she feeds that kid."

Grissom swallowed a spoonful of jell-o.  "Sara, I know you're always looking for clever ways to transport the evidence, but this is one you really didn't need to bring back to the lab with you. " He pointed to her shoes.  Each boot had small bits of gravel from the area surrounding the train track imbedded around the sole. 

She smiled and went to the trash can, banging her foot along the inside rim.  "I sure don't want to take my work home with me." She kicked the gravel from her shoe.  


End file.
